Was/is it taboo to talk about your dating life with others?

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Jayo
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08 Dec 2024, 5:43 pm

I mean, was it taboo to talk about your dating life with family members and those in your "circle", small as it may be?
I definitely had this attitude when courting my now-wife, from one of my friends...it wasn't expressed but I could feel it.

In essence, I felt/found some of those who'd known me for a while and my Asperger's diagnosis (so-named at the time) tended to viscerally regard me as a genetic error, not natural, whatever you want to call it...not using the r-word (helps that I had/have a gifted IQ with a career in CS/IT, plus cultivating a high masking ability)... so in retrospect I found they wouldn't ask me all the same questions that NT peers or family might ask. And like I said, one friend even shut down any discussion of it (he later apologized for his attitude, after he learned more about ASD).

The root cause of this attitude? I find it stems from a milder sense of eugenics (not the Nazi kind), that most "normal" folks don't want to think about or talk about anything suggesting intimate relations between a "normal" and a "not-quite-normal" - I wouldn't necessarily use the term genetically inferior (again, that's a Nazi term) to describe their attitude, but there's certainly some mild-to-moderate contempt and disgust behind the attitude of not talking about our dating life openly. :(

I realize this is mostly geared towards ASD men, not so much women. It does seem to be a different gender standard when it comes to "inter-neurotype relationships". Men are supposed to project more competence and confidence which dates back tens of thousands of years, part of evo psych. Being "Aspie" tends to dilute this perception in others eyes, even if internally and relatively speaking, we may have exhibited a great deal of confidence and competence (in selected areas).

Funny thing is, back when I was early 20s and no love life (pre-diagnosis, it was the '90s), I can recall a few people asking me why I didn't have a girlfriend. I just discretely told them that I haven't found the right one. Which is a half-truth, and I could viscerally sense that something was "off" about me - but I felt that elaborating on the "why" would have been futile. It's not as if they would've done anything to get me acquainted with any single girls anyway.



Aspinator
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08 Dec 2024, 6:50 pm

There is a German proverb that says; He who talks to me about others will talk to others about me